State legislator wants to use seized fentanyl in Ohio executions

Tuesday

A death-penalty expert calls it unworkable, but an Ohio House member intends to introduce a bill to allow the state's condemned to be executed with illegal fentanyl seized by police.

In a Monday email, Rep. Scott Wiggam, R-Wooster, sought co-sponsors for his planned legislation, which would employ a synthetic opioid that has killed thousands of Ohioans in accidental overdoses.

"I believe that seized fentanyl (considered forefeited contraband through the court system) is the best solution" to the state's inability to buy execution drugs from their manufacturers, Wiggam wrote.

Wiggam proposes that the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction work with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to secure fentanyl seized in law enforcement operations for lethal injection.

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The state prisons agency would set rules for handling, testing and administering the deadly drug for use in executions, Wiggam wrote in his email.

Wiggam, who supports capital punishment, said Tuesday he fears the death penalty is fading away "from a thousand cuts" and wants his bill to be part of the discussion of options.

"There's a tendency to try, in my opinion, to get rid of the death penalty without ever having the argument ... just by saying, 'It's too hard,'" Wiggam said.

The executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center said that while Wiggam's proposal has surfaced in other states, "it has not been taken seriously."

"There is just something fundamentally wrong in using illegal drugs to carry out a legal sentence," said the center's Robert Dunham. "These are illegal drugs, controlled substances, materials used in other crimes."

Federal law prohibits illegal use and possession of fentanyl, and "police just can't turn it over to whomever they want," Dunham said, adding that a divided Congress is unlikely to authorize using fentanyl in executions. The Death Penalty Information Center neither supports nor opposes capital punishment but is critical of how it has been administered.

Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said defense lawyers for those facing death would be handed challenges to take before judges.

"Where did the fentanyl come from? Has it been tested? ... How do we know if it's medical or black-market fentanyl?" Daniels asked. Wiggam said testing could resolve many questions and concerns.

"We think it is time for Ohio to end the death penalty," Daniels said. "It's frustrating that Ohio continues to twist itself into knots finding ways to execute people when Ohio has done such a bad job of it in recent history."

In a first, legally acquired fentanyl was part of the drug combination in a Nebraska execution last year, but proposed use of the opioid in a Nevada execution was blocked by a judge.

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine recently said drug manufacturers have threatened to cut off the state's purchases of medicinal drugs needed for state prisoners, juvenile offenders, occupants of veterans' homes and others if their drugs are used in executions against their wishes.

Unwilling to risk losing access to the pharmaceuticals, DeWine said he would talk with lawmakers about instituting another means of executing convicted murderers.

Asked if legislators would adopt an alternative, Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, said, "I think we could and I think there are other states that are using some now. ... I suspect there will be a wide range of options."

In an interview with The Dispatch, Obhof hinted that lawmakers seemingly could examine lethal gas as an alternate means of administering the death penalty.

The Senate president said it was "unlikely" the state would use electrocution, a firing squad or hanging. He declined to comment when told lethal gas was the only other option listed among the states.

The 30 states with active death penalty laws all use lethal injection as the principle means of death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Twenty-one of those states also have alternative methods, with nine allowing electrocution, six lethal gas and three each hanging or firing squad.

Fifteen of those states reserve the alternative methods for use only when death by injection is unavailable or found unconstitutional.